
PRODUCTS 


BALTIMORE: 

F. A. Hanzsche, Steam Book and Job PrintBB, 
166 W, Baltimore Street. 






V\ 5^ 


Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1879, 

By JOHN T. KING, M. D,, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington City, D. C. 


P. 

U S Geol Survey 

21F’03 






GOAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 

' * 

Coal is the mainspring of civilization; by it the 
wheels of industry are put in motion and commerce 
carried on all over the globe. By coal night is con¬ 
verted into day, and winter into summer; it is the em¬ 
bodiment of a power more potent than that of fabled 
genii and giants. 

It once composed the tissues of those strange trees 
that lifted their sealed trunks and waved their feathery 
foliage along the marshy shores of the carboniferous 
continent, which no human foot had ever trod, but 
swarmed with gigantic salamanders, and mail-clad 
fishes that were the monarchs of the lonely lakes and seas. 
So far as man existed, the earth was Azoic, and this 
fact teaches the wisdom and goodness of Him who 
hath in so wonderful a manner, and in such inexhaustible 
quantity stored up in so imperishable a form for un¬ 
created man the fuel of a world for ages incalculable by 
man. 

The Chinese knew of and used coal centuries ago, 
and in the reign of Edward VI., 1552, coal was used in 
France. 

The earliest notice we find of Stone Coal is B. C. 
371. In 1240 coal was first sent to London. In 1398 
Edward I. published a proclamation against it as a 
public nuisance. 

Carbon or coal is one of the chief constituents of this 
vast and varied universe. It constitutes a large per 
centage of all vegetable, animal and mineral masses. 
When one sees in the bowels of the earth masses of. 
hard black coal or contemplates it in the glowinggrate 
or furnace, he can scarcely realize that he is looking 
upon a substance whose formation dates back millions 
of ages before the human family existed. It was pre¬ 
vious to and during the period of the coal formation 




COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


4 

that the reptillian monsters swarmed and reigned su¬ 
preme over both sea and land, huge reptilian whales 
mounted on paddles swarmed in and were the tyrants 
of the Atlantic sea, and the great Ichthyosaurus laved 
his colossal form in the ancient sea and lacustrine 
waters, and the terrible and monstrous Plesiosaurus, held 
undisputed sway in the vast aqueous domain of an an¬ 
cient globe, and waged a deadly strife with contempor¬ 
aneous monsters of the deep. 



(ICTHYOSAURUS). 

If man had been permitted to view the spectacle 
of these countless numbers of ancient leviathans and 
terrible serpents of the sea and the equally countless 
numbers of the land mammoths, powerful Dinotheria, 
Megatheria, Mylodons and Glyptodons, engaged either 
in sportive pastime or deadly combat, with a sea en¬ 
sanguined and convulsed, and the earth trembling 
under their ponderous tread, he would have been ap¬ 
palled, even if he had been the most intrepid mariner 
that ever strode the deck of barque in ancient or mod¬ 
ern seas, but when they existed and held their sway, 
it was long,—countless ages ere man appeared in Eden, 
or in any portion of the earth—long before the prow of 
ship cleaved these waters, or canvas was spread to waft 
the commerce of civilized nations. 

At the period of the coal formation, upon the 
land roamed in countless numbers, inconceivable 
by man, the unwieldly Dinotherium, corporeally 
gigantic, with his elephantine proboscis and down¬ 
ward curved dual tusks, that served as implements, 
or huge pickaxes to uproot the deeply-imbedded roots 
of ancient jungles and forests of the stately Leipoden- 
dron, Equisetae and Calamite. 

Contemporaneous was the Mammoth, gigantic and 



COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


5 


countless in numbers as were the huge Megatherium 
and Mylodon, a climbing, herbivorous, gigantic ani¬ 
mal of the character of the “ Sloth,” a fossil specimen of 
which may be viewed and studied in the Smithsonian 
Institute, Washington,and in primaeval morasses, jungles 
and tarns, ponderously stalked the sluggish, mail-clad, 
armored, huge, canopied “ Glyptodon,” whose fossil 
remains can also be seen in the department of Paleon¬ 
tology of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. 



(PLESIOSAURUS.) 


Contemporaneous with these huge marine monsters 
and gigantic quadrupedal animals of the land were 
the great reptilian birds, the formidable Dinosaurus, 
Pterodactyl and Archeopteryx, that in mammoth meas¬ 
ure stalked intrepidly and strode the shore sands of 
these ancient lakes and seas. 

It is within the recollection of at present living per¬ 
sons, when coal was first used upon this continent as 
luel. One hundred and ten years ago, the existence of 
anthracite was first known to the white settlers of Penn¬ 
sylvania, but, in 1684, twenty years after Colonel John 
Campbell laid off the first town lots of Pittsburg, priv¬ 
ilege was granted by the Penns to mine coal from the 
hill opposite the city. The privilege being granted for 
$30 sterling per lot; one hundred years elapsed, 1784, 
before coal mining began in the vicinity of Pittsburg. 
In 1791, the Maunch Chunck mines were discovered, 


6 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


and soon after, the Lehigh mines. In 1806, a load of coal 
was sent to Philadelphia, and upon trial was consider¬ 
ed unmanageable; fora long time there was positive pre¬ 
judice against anthracite, and it was during the war of 
1812 that the “Black Stones,” as it was called,began to 
be used in stoves for warming houses, but so little was 



(GLYPTODON). 

thought of it as fuel that only 24 tons of it were used in 
the year 1824, in the city of Philadelphia, and in the 
six following years only 365 tons had been used in 
that city. 

Anthracite coal was discovered in Rhode Island in 
1768 but the coal was not used to any extent until 1808. 

Coal is the production of vegetable matters which 
grew upon the place or locality where it is now found, 
and the process by which it was and is now being con¬ 
verted from woody matter into coal is mainly account¬ 
ed for by two causes—moisture and pressure. Newcas¬ 
tle coal was used as fuel more than 800 years ago and 
there is no doubt that the ancient Romans and Bri¬ 
tons used it. 

That coal is a production of vegetation there can be 
no doubt and a most wonderful vegetation it was, and 
how interesting are the gigantic plants, trees and forests 
of an ancient world that now produce the fuel that 
blazes on every hearth-stone and that cheers and glad¬ 
dens every happy home, you can see in every coal¬ 
mine wonders of nature that charm and fascinate and 
awe with their sublimity ; here are found impressions 









7 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 

A , 

of leaves ir leir most delicate tracery and the stems 
and trunks of trees of gigantic size now extinct upon 
the earth, and as one roams through these subterranean 
passages and galleries of the coal measures, you can see 
in the roof or rocks vast quantities of the prostrate and 
flattened trunks of trees of gigantic size and length, of 
unknown species. This coal vegetation was of a de¬ 
scription compared with which anything in our day of 
the same class of vegetation in respect to size and quan¬ 
tity fades into insignificance; the exuberant growth of 
our tropical climates is as but the grass of the fields 
as compared with that of the coal era ; for example, the 
equisetoe or horse-tail flags that now grow upon the 



ARCHEOPTERYX. 

earth measure not more than one-half inch in diameter, 
while those that grew at the period of the formation of 
the coal measures were as much as fourteen inches. 
Club-mosses even in our tropics are dwarfs, while those 
of the coal measures were as thick as a man’s body and 
sixty and seventy feet in height. A large portion of 
the vegetation of the coal era is composed of ferns of 
incredible size; measuring sixty feet in height, and there 




8 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


we find the stately Leipodendron and ornate Sigillaria 
the impression upon the bark of which reminds one of 
the sculptor’s art, as distinctly impressed as if made by 
a seal upon wax by the hand of man. 



Sea weeds and other marine plants are not found in 
coal, the plants are all of fresh water species. The forma¬ 
tion of coal is a demonstrable fact. We can see the 
woody fibre transformed into a dark combustible com¬ 
pound that we call peat or lignite. This lignite is form¬ 
ed in nearly all the states and territories between the 
Missouri River, and the Pacific coast or more than half 
the territory of the United States. The principal local¬ 
ities where it is found of the best quality is along the 
lines of the lower Pacific and Kansas Pacific Railroad. 
We then see it hardening both by compression and by 



FOSSIL FERN OF THE COAL MEASURES. 

the slow burning process in water known as ecemacau- 
sis. 

But how was this vast amount of vegetable matter 
accumulated, from whence did it come? At the period 
of the coal formations vast and endless forests of gigan¬ 
tic trees and mammoth ferns covered the earth’s entire 
surface, quickened and stimulated into growth by a fer¬ 
vent sun and an unceasing almost impenetrable veil of 






9 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 

, 

moisture. The debris of these endless forests and 
boundless morasses of luxuriant ferns successively fall¬ 
ing year by year through countless eons of ages were 
preserved against decomposition by stagnant water and 
dense atmospheric humidity and in time became peat 
and subsequently coal. The formation of different 
kinds of coal such as anthracite and bituminous with 
all their varities is due to the different degrees of pro¬ 
gress made in the process of liquefaction and carboni¬ 
zation. The chemist can convert vegetable matter into 
coal of all degrees of hardness, possessing all the vari- 



STIGMARIA FLORA OF THE COAL 

MEASURES. 

ous qualities of that formed by nature, and is able to 
demonstrate that all coal when first formed or in its 
first stage of carbonization is of the bituminous variety 
and that anthracite is the result of igneous action to 
which it was subjected after it became coal; as proof of 





























IO 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS ,. 

the fact anthracite coal is only found in metamorphic 
rocks and the only coal formed in this character of 
rock is anthracite. 

As before stated in peat and lignite we see the first 
step in the formation of coal. Peat is bituminous veg¬ 
etation, generally mosses and other herbaceous plants 
which have accumulated in marshes called peat-bogs; 
lignite is the product of a similar alteration or metamor¬ 
phosis effected in the woody tissue and from retaining 
to a greater or less degree the form and structure of 



SIGILLARIA FLORA OF THE COAL 
MEASURES. 

wood receives the name of lignite. Peat is a formation 
of the present period, lignite is of an older formation, 
and bituminous coal of a still older metamorphosis, and 
where special causes and favorable conditions such as 
the requisite amount of heat prevailed to carry the 
transformation of the peat or bituminous coal a step or 





COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


ii 


stage further, anthracite was produced, and when this 
transformation was carried on yet further the coal was 
converted into Plumbago or black lead. 

Under peculiar circumstances nature has departed 
from her usual routine, has directly changed the lignite 
into anthracite,—has ignored the intermediate stage, 
the bituminous, as may be seen near Santa Fe, New 
Mexico and on Queen Charlotte’s Island, south of Alas¬ 
ka. 

If we assume that the average forests of the present 
period requires ioo years to attain its full growth, it 
would require 7,400 years to accumulate the mass of 
coal existing in the 30 feet coal beds of Pennsylvania. 

The thickness of a seam of coal depends on the 
length of time the vegetable materials of which it was 
composed were accumulating, and the fragmentary or 
detached character of the coal fields is undoubtedly 
caused by convulsions which took place long subse¬ 
quent to the formation of the coal beds. Thus have deep 
valleys been formed dividing the coal field in measure, 
leaving sometimes only small patches of coal upon the 
tops of mountains and often a wide area of country 
interposes between the fragments of the same coal 
measures. That the great upheaval of vast mountain 
ranges was long subsequent to the coal formations re¬ 
quires no argument to convince one. Upon the loftiest 
peaks are to be found the coal measures or beds, their 
strata undulating conformably with similar strata on 
distant apices or the escarpment of the fracture of the 
bed will be upon the mountain side and the correspond¬ 
ing portion deep down in the valley and often separated 
by miles of intervening country. 

Of the thirty-seven states composing the Union, the 
following contain no coal of any kind whatever: Maine, 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Florida, Missis¬ 
sippi, Louisiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota, several 
others not named above contain a little coal but it is of 
no commercial value. 

There are four great carboniferous coal fields in the 
United States, the first and most important is the Ap¬ 
palachian or Alleghany, it is 875 miles in length, travers- 


12 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


ing parts of seven States in a northeast and south¬ 
west direction, and from 30 to 180 miles in width. 

The second great coal field occupies the centre part 
of the State of Michigan. 

The third great coal field is of enormous dimensions 
covering two-thirds of the large State of Illinois, the 
western part of Indiana and the western part of Ken¬ 
tucky. 

The fourth great coal field covers a large portion of 
Iowa, an extensive area in Missouri, and a portion of 
Kansas and Nebraska. Another extensive coal deposit 
exists in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The area 
of the United States is 2,915,203 square miles and the 
coal area covers one square mile in 10. The entire area 
of the coal fields of the United States is 58,000 square 
miles, viz: Pennsylvania, 12,774; Maryland, 550; 
Ohio, 10,000; West Virginia, 16,000; Kentucky, 8,983; 
Tennessee, 5,100; Alabama, 5,330, averaging 50,000,000 
tons annually. 

As previously stated the varieties of coal are the 
Anthracite, Bituminous, Lignite and Peat. 


COAL PRODUCING COUNTRIES OF THE GLOBE. 


Belgium. 900 Square Miles 

Prussia. 1.800 “ “ 

Austria. 1,800 

France. 1,800 

Spain . 3,000 

England. 11,000 

Nova Scotia. 18,000 

Chili, Australia,India and China, each.... 28,000 
United States.192,000 


a 

a 


u 


u 


&< 

a 


C( 


It is the manifest destiny of America to be the great¬ 
est coal producing country of the world. Pennsylva¬ 
nia annually mines on an average 20,000,000 tons of 
Anthracite and 15,000,000 tons of Bituminous coal, or 
35,000,000 tons, and Maryland’s annual production is 
on an average 1,650,000 of tons of Bituminous and 
Semi-Bituminous coals. 


Receipts of Coal at Baltimore for the past three years. 


Years. Cumberland, tons. Anthracite, tons. 

1878.1,087,685 301,042 

1877. 966,668 343,936 

1876.1,141,689 263,954 













COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


i3 


Anthracite is by far the most important, it is the hard 
coal of America. It is the universal fuel for domestic 
use in the Eastern and Middle States in preference to all 
other kinds of fuel, it is also called “ glance or blind coal 
or culm ”in England. It largely consists of carbon, from 
85 to 93 per cent., its color is jet black, the hardest kinds 
metallic black. It has a bright, glossy lustre and a 
beautiful iridescent lustre, it is harder to kindle than 
other kinds of coal, has great heating power and never 
leaves coke and but few ashes, it does not soil the 
hands and from its cleanliness, the absence of smoke, 
soot and dirt is universally preferred for domestic use. 
Its existence was first made known to the white settlers 
of Pennsylvania in 1768. It would be difficult to make 
people believe that all the anthracite or hard coal of 
America of which more than 22,000,000 tons are annu¬ 
ally mined, comes from a small locality in the State 
of Pennsylvania, from the four counties of Dauphin, 
Northumberland, Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne, that 
in its area if joined together would only form a small 
county 20 miles in width by 24 miles in length. 

The great coal fields of Pennsylvania are the Schuyl¬ 
kill, 73 miles in length by a mean breadth of 2 miles. 
The Shamokin and Mahoonoy, 25 miles in length by 
3 in width, and the Lehigh coal field consisting of 7 
separate basins. 

The Wyoming and Lackawanna is the largest and 
finest of the anthracite coal basins, it is a solid unbroken 
field of more than 50 miles in length with an average 
breadth of 5 miles and contains 198 square miles, it is 
situated wholly in the county of Luzerne and is com¬ 
pletely shut in by mountain barriers called the Shawnee 
and Wyoming mountains. The total area of the an¬ 
thracite coal region of Pennsylvania is 472 square miles. 

The coal seams are found as thin as a sheet of paper 
and of all thicknesses up to the gigantic beds on the 
Lehigh mountains some of which are more than 50 
feet in thickness. The bituminous coal seams are usu¬ 
ally from 3 to 6 feet in thickness, at Pittsburg they are 
8 feet, and at Cumberland, Md.,they are 14 feet, and in 
Ohio 12 feet in thickness. 


14 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


WORKABLE SEAMS OF COAL. 

The late report of the English Royal Commission 
included all coal seams workable i foot in thickness, 
seams of good coal 22 inches in thickness have been 
worked in Pennsylvania. Miners call from 2 to 3 feet 
of clean coal a workable seam. 



millllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 
MINING COAL. 


The thickness of the coal is not in itself conclusive 
as to the quantity that can be produced in any given 
area, a 3 feet seam will produce 4,840 tons to the acre 






































































































































COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


15 


of land, or every cubic yard of coal is equal to 1 ton, 
but the 4,840 square yards of an acre can not be en¬ 
tirely mined. In the Blossburg, Pennsylvania, mines 
nearly every particle of coal can be mined, on the other 
hand in the Cumberland, Maryland region where the 
coal is 14 feet thick, only from 7 to 9 feet of coal can be 
taken out owing to the softness of the coal and the dif¬ 
ficulty of supporting the roof of the mine. 

In the anthracite region the amount of minable coal 
is small in comparison to the whole quantity in the 
ground, and 3 separate seams of 6 feet each are more 
profitable than 1 of 18 feet of thickness. The loss at¬ 
tending the breaking up of hard coal is 15 to 40 per cent. 
These facts indicate the small proportion of marketable 
coal to that deposited in the earth. The waste there¬ 
fore in mines and above ground in the proportion of 
coal for market is immense. 

The mining of anthracite coal is done chiefly by 
blasting, that of bituminous coal bv cutting beneath the 
coal seam and along the sides of the chamber as far as 
the miner can reach with his pike, then by driving 
wedges along the top the mass of coal is thrown down. 
Powder is also occasionally used. 

As before stated all kinds of coal must concede to 
anthracite for household use, on account of its cleanli¬ 
ness, freedom from smoke, soot and flame. 

• BITUMINOUS COAL. 

By the term bituminous coal is meant coal that con¬ 
tains more largely than anthracite the gases, oxygen, 
hydrogen and nitrogen, and they give it a more flaming 
character in burning; it burns like bituminous, but con¬ 
tains no true bitumen. It is the coke forming coal. 

SEMI-BITUMINOUS COAL 

Is the kind which yields coke and combustible gases, 
and not less than 70 nor more than 84 per cent, of car¬ 
bon; it is decidedly dirty, cannot be touched without 
soiling the hands; it is the great gas-coal and the best 
for blacksmithing and steam generating purposes. The 
great bituminous and semi-bituminous coal regions 
are the Blossburg, Mclntire, Towanda, Antrim, Johns- 


i6 


COAL AND ITS 'PRODUCTS. 


town and Broad Top in the State of Pennsylvania, and 
the Cumberland, Frostbury or George’s Creek coal 
mines in Alleghany county, Maryland. 

The Cumberland coal region is one of the most im¬ 
portant of the bituminous coal regions of America. 
The coal has a world-wide fame as an iron-making and 
steam-producing coal. Every ocean steamer uses it, 
except those of the United States navy which all burn 
anthracite on account of the absence of smoke which 
would betray their vicinity in the day to an enemy. 

In the Cumberland coal bed, the coal is fourteen feet 
in thickness, the thickest of any in America. It is 
thirty miles in length, and between four and five miles 
in width or twenty-seven square miles. Twenty-three 
square miles of this region has not been mined, and, 
upon reasonable data, the calculation has been made 
that the universal area of 23 square miles can yield 
75,7°3,4 10 tons of coal, and will take thirty-three years 
to exhaust. Of this incalculably valuable area, the Con¬ 
solidated Coal Company is proprietor of more than 
one-half of the entire Cumberland coal field. The 
Consolidation Coal Company owns the Cumberland 
and Pennsylvania and the Cumberland Branch lateral 
Railroads. The balance of the coal area belongs to 
fourteen other companies. 

The true bituminous coals are eminently preferable 
for gas manufacture, for blacksmithing, puddling, fires in 
rolling mills and for generating steam. Its value is*due 
to its great heating power and the facility of diffusing 
the flame that accompanies its combustion over a large 
surface, and for its coke-producing qualities. 

GEORGE’S CREEK MINES 

Embrace the Consolidated, George’s C. C. & I. Co., 
Maryland, New Central, American, Hampshire and 
Baltimore, Borden, Atlantic and George’s Creek. The 
latter property comprises some hundreds of acres, it pro¬ 
duces coal of a superior quality, justly popular for loco¬ 
motives, is largely used on the Pacific coast for black- 
smithing and welding. Franklin, Swanton, Potomac, 
Piedmont C. & I. Co., and Bisen Avon. 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


i7 


The lands of the New Central Coal Company are 
located in the heart of the region, and comprise be¬ 
tween three and four thousand acres, on which open¬ 
ings have been already made, developing 1,100 acres 
of the fourteen feet bed, the coal from which has 
proved itself to be the very best in the Cumberland re¬ 
gion. The facilities of the Company are among the 
best, and their rank as producers is shown in the fact 
that for three years past they have sold and delivered 
an average of 325,000 tons each year. 

At Bloomington, 2 miles west of Piedmont, on the 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, are the elegant mines of 
the Hampshire & Baltimore Coal Company, also on the 
C. & P. Road, one mile from Piedmont and two miles 
from Lonaconing are the other mines of the company. 
At Colt’s Armory, in Hartford, and at the U. S. Armory, 
at Springfield, it has been found after the most thorough 
tests that the coal from the Cumberland or Alleghany 
region is the best and most economical coal known, for 
heat or steam generating purposes. 

The Hampshire Company’s mines are located on the 
celebrated fourteen foot bed of this coal region ; their 
annual product shows that they take front rank with the 
producers, and the markets secured by the Company 
(to the West Indies, South America and the Canadian 
Provinces), furnish evidence of its quality and efficiency. 

Sold by the cargo, and shipped to BALTIMORE 
and ALEXANDRIA, the Hampshire coal is special¬ 
ly adapted to the manufacture of IRON, and is unsur¬ 
passed for SMITH’S USE, LOCOMOTIVES, and 
for Steam purposes generally. 

CANNEL COAL. 

Is a beautiful grate coal. It contains more illuminat¬ 
ing gas than bituminous coal, and when added to the 
latter improves the quality of the gas. It produces 
but little coke. 

BLOCK COAL. 

The State of Indiana is the chief producer of Block 
Coal. It is chiefly used in the “raw” state for smelting 
iron. 


i8 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS\ 


Grahamite was chiefly used by gaslight companies for 
improving the gas; it is remarkably free from sulphur 
and ash, and produces excellent coke, in photometric 
value it is equal to 32 candles. 

ASPHALTUM. 

Asphalt is a natural mineral bitumen, and is composed 
of asphaltene and petrolene. In nature it is found com¬ 
bined with carbonate of lime and other mineral sub¬ 
stances. It fuses only at about 400 degrees Fahren¬ 
heit, and maintains its hardness under a constant heat 
of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. This substance was form¬ 
erly obtained almost solely from the neighborhood of 
the Dead Sea, but within five years, the great lake of 
asphalt in the Island of Trinidad has been used as a 
source of supply both for the United States and 
Europe. This lake is one of the most remarkable 
natural curiosities in the world, and its existence has 
never been satisfactorily explained. It is circular in 
shape, and covers about 114 acres. Its depth is un¬ 
known, although it is estimated to be 800 feet. 

The asphaltum constantly bubbles up in the centre, 
and flows outward. On the outer hedges it hardens, 
and it will sustain carts and teams 200 or 300 feet from 
the shore. It is cut out in blocks, refined by heat, and 
finds its way to market molded into barrels. For 
paving city streets, asphalt is fast coming into general 
use in Europe. In Paris, all the boulevards and other 
principal streets are paved with it, and in London no 
other material is now allowed to be used for laying 
purposes. 

COMBUSTION OF COAL. 

There is scarcely anything that is so much wasted as 
fuel. Every other mode of obtaining power has proved 
to be more costly than the use of steam from the com¬ 
bustion of coal and the improvements of the methods 
of using it so as to obtain a greater degree of power 
from the fuel used is therefore one of the most impor¬ 
tant subjects which can engage the attention of a man¬ 
ufacturing and commercial people, 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


19 


The burning of coal is strictly a chemical process. It 
is the chemical union of the oxygen of the air with the 
carbon of the coal accompanied with light and heat. 
Coal consists of carbon and hydrogen. They are its 
only valuable constituents, it contains others but they 
are of no value; in its combustion a definite amount of 
oxygen must be furnished for a definite quantity of hy¬ 
drogen, and fora fixed quantity of carbon. Here there 
are those elements for the production of heat. Two 
of them carbon and hydrogen cost money, while nature 
freely furnishes the oxygen, yet strange to say, there is 
scarcely a coal fire where a large portion of the two ex¬ 
pensive elements are not wasted for the want of the suf¬ 
ficient supply of the third “oxygen” which costs nothing. 
Great improvements have been made in lamps for the 
proper admission of air, thus improving combustion. 
The same should be done for the stove. When the 
draft of a stove or furnace is closed or when the fire is 
covered with ashes the fire is said to be smothered. For 
carbon and hydrogen to be combustible, air should 
be freely furnished, all these elements should be brought 
together in exactly the proper proportions. If the sup¬ 
ply of oxygen is insufficient the combustion is imper¬ 
fect and consequently a great loss of heat or a great 
waste of the heating power of the fuel. Neither the 
carbon and hydrogen of the coal and the oxygen of the 
air unite readily in mass, if they did an open coal fire 
would be preferable. They only unite by atoms or 
particle by particle in definite proportions. 

When fresh coal is thrown upon a fire the tempera¬ 
ture decreases and if under a boiler the steam goes 
down for the reason that the freshly added coal absorbs 
a given amount of caloric or heat to bring it up to 
the point of combustion. 

The common kerosene and argand lamp gives more 
light than a candle because the air and carbon and hy¬ 
drogen of the oil unite particle by particle. This 
should be the case with a stove, grate or furnace, the 
air should to introduced in small jets or quantities. 
When perfect combustion takes place there will be no 
soot or smoke produced; if too much or too little air is 
supplied, soot and smoke will result In all furnaces and 


20 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


stoves heat is lost by opening the doors and putting on 
fresh coal. 

PETROLEUM OR MINERAL OIL. 

What is petroleum or mineral oil? It is like coal, 
slow maceration of plants, with this difference, in the 
formation of coal the plants which entered into its com¬ 
position were woody or fibrous. The plants which 
concurred to the formation of Petroleum were sea weeds 
or marine plants. They have no wood in their tissue. 
It is exclusively cellular and the pure bitumen has been 
preserved in subterranean cavities. The conditions 
favorable to an exuberance of vegetation existed long 
before the carboniferous epochs and the result was an 
immense marine vegetation, and vast reservoirs of coal 
oil. 

This Petroleum or Rock Oil is found in many parts 
of the world. Job saw rivers of oil flowing from 
the rocks. It was known more than 2,000 years ago 
to the Greeks and Romans. For centuries the coal oil 
wells and springs of India have supplied the inhabitants 
with illuminating oil. The same oil is used by the 
dwellers upon the borders of the Caspian Sea and the 
entire population of Persia. For more than 200 years 
Italy has used coal oil, and it is found in many islands 
of the sea. Cuba and Trinidad produce it. 

Analysis shows that Rock Oil is nearly identical with 
the fluids distilled from bituminous coal. In the United 
States Petroleum is found in great profusion in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky. Rock 
Oil was known from a remote period to the Indians, 
who used it for medicinal purposes. Under the names 
of Genesee Oil and Seneca Oil it was for a long time, and 
yet is, a popular and efficacious remedy for rheumatism. 
Previous to 1845 no attempt was made to procure oil 
in any quantity and what was produced was used almost 
entirely for medicinal purposes. In 1845 the great oil 
fever broke out and the excitement resulting from it is 
fresh in the memory of many. In i860 more than 200 
wells were sunk in the vicinity of Oil Creek. Immense 
fortunes were made and lost. Oil refineries sprang up 
in every city and such a gigantic industry did it become 


2i 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS . 

that from the exportation of one and one-half millions 
of gallons in i860, in 1868 it had reached ninety-nine 
millions of gallons, and in 1870 the export was one 
hundred and forty-one millions gallons. 

The aggregate receipts of Refined and Crude at 
Baltimore for the past year was 879,605 barrels, against 
1,094,952 barrels in 1877, Of this decrease 206,936 
barrels were per the B. & O. road, and 8,411 per the 
Northern Central. The total exports of petroleum from 
the United States for the year amount to 325 millions of 
gallons, against 331 millions in 1877. New York fell 
off compared with the previous year about 12 millions; 
Baltimore upwards of 7 millions, whilst Philadelphia 
shows a gain of 26 millions. 

Coal or carbon as is well known is the producer of 
our illuminating gas. It is within the recollection of 
present living persons when gas was first used. When 
not quite sixty years ago it was determined to light the 
streets of London with gas, it was looked upon ’ as 
Utopian, even by scientific men, even including the 
famous chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy, and a few years 
later when the Houses of Parliament were about to be 
lighted by gas, the members were so perturbed on 
account of the supposed intense heat that the gas pipes 
would be subjected to, that they insisted upon having 
them laid several feet distant from the walls of the build¬ 
ing, so as to prevent any injury to the building. The 
City of Baltimore was the first city on the American 
continent lighted by gas. 

VOLUME OF GAS OBTAINED FROM A TON. 

Cubic Feet. 


Cannel. 15,000 

Cumberland. 10,000 

English, mean . 11,000 

Newcastle. 10,000 

Kilkenny..... 12,500 

Oil and Grease. 23,000 

Pine Wood. 11,800 

Pittsburgh Coal. 9,520 

Resin. 15,000 

Scotch Coal. 15,000 

Virginia Coal. 8,930 













22 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


Coal is the producer of yet another set of most im¬ 
portant and valuable substances or products. Previous 
to being in a condition for illuminating purposes gas 
is deprived of a variety of so-called impurities. The 
most important of these is Coal Tar. This substance, 
so repulsive in odor, and defiling to the touch, was for 
a long time totally unprofitable, and was considered 
a nuisance by gas companies, has now arisen to the 
highest commercial and artistic importance on account 
of those valuable unrivalled and astonishingly beautiful 
colors or dyes it yields, known as Analine, Anthracene 
and Alazarine. 

These magnificent dyes have influenced and directed 
the fashion and taste of the entire globe, and have sup¬ 
planted one of the most ancient, fast and important 
colors heretofore known, and have had an effect upon 
agriculture and the revenue of two continents. The 
Madder plant once so widely cultivated for its coloring 
and cultivated for centuries as a source of national 
wealth for several nations has had to yield to the bril¬ 
liant and gorgeous dyes of the repulsive coal tar of the 
gas house. In these brilliant dyes obtained from the 
nauseous coal tar we see petrified, enshrined and pre¬ 
served countless ages before man’s creation, the virgin, 
most brilliant and resplendent rays of a newly created 
sun. In them we behold the brilliant sunbeams that 
fell upon an unpeopled world, that were wholly absorbed 
by the endless forests and rank vegetation that at that 
period was earth’s universal garniture. 

THE MECHANICAL EQUIVALENT OF HEAT. 

i. The quantity of heat produced by the friction 
of bodies, whether solid or liquid, is always proportion¬ 
al to the quantity of force expended. 2. The quantity 
of heat capable of increasing the temperature of a 
pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit, requires for its 
evolution the expenditure of a mechanical force re¬ 
quired by the fall of 772 pounds through the space of 
one foot. 

The quantity of heat which would raise one pound 
of water one degree in temperature is exactly equal to 
what would be generated if a pound-weight, after 


COAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 


23 


having fallen r 7j2 feet, had its moving force destroyed 
by collision with the earth. Conversely, the amount 
of heat necessary to raise a pound of water one de¬ 
gree would, if applied mechanically, be competent to 
raise a pound-weight 772 feet high, or it would raise 
772 pounds one foot high. 


UNDERGROUND TEMPERATURE. 

The depths and corresponding temperatures are as 
follows: 

Depth in feet. 

68 
299 
621 
939 

DEEPEST COAL PIT. 


Degrees Fahr. 
47.9 
48.8 

50.7 

57.8 


Depth in feet. 
1290 
1414 
1652 
1900 


Degrees Fahr. 

58.4 

59.4 

61.4 
64.1 


The deepest pit in the world is said to be at Chat- 
elineau, Belgium. It is 2822 feet deep from the sur¬ 
face, and it was intended to sink another shaft in a 
tunnel from the bottom of the first shaft, a further depth 
of 492 feet, making a total depth of 3314 feet. The 
deepest coal shaft in England is the Dunkenfield, 2,060 
feet, took ten years time to sink, cost $500,000, and 
this to reach a bed of coal only 4 feet 8^ inches thick. 


24 


AD VER riSEMENTS. 




CORNER 


East Falls @ Eastern Avenues, 

BJMIMOEE, ' 


Notice. — White Pine, Hemlock, Walnut, 
Ash, Cherry, Beech, &c., and all kinds of Lum¬ 
ber handled on Commission, and prompt returns 
made. 


1 Advances on Consignments. 























